Eyes on the prize, folks.

Trump's tweets and Hillary's hissy fits don't matter a jot.

Jefferson Airplane Bernie* reminds us what's really important:

With change comes opportunity, but only if we remember what we want.

*pre June 2016 (Jefferson Starship Bernie)

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

All this unfocused agitation does nothing. It needs to be channeled into specific action on specific issues.

WE can define that agenda, while others are busy trying to define each other.

up
0 users have voted.

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Phoebe Loosinhouse's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger
faceless boring bureaucrats with no charisma whatsoever whose sole raison d'etre is to make government work for the benefit of the citizens.

This is almost my new ideal - Politicians as cogs who can be swapped out like spark plugs in a tune-up due to term limits, but the party agenda (living wages, single payer, free tuition, civil rights, social justice, jobs, employment, renewable energy, net neutrality infrastructure, etc.) just continues to chug along the tracks to the depot and eventual full implementation.

up
0 users have voted.

" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "

Big Al's picture

chances are none of us are going to get a thing. I think that's the biggest problem, there's no solidarity for a single goal.

up
0 users have voted.
Raggedy Ann's picture

@Big Al I am in complete agreement with you. The only thing people can agree on is that they don't want Herr Drumpf. Do they, then, want Pence? If not Pence, then Ryan?

Until people can define what they want and then go for it - we will all be flailing about.

It will be up to the people - someday, I hope.

up
0 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

WaterLily's picture

@Raggedy Ann The frustrating thing is, millions of people did define what they wanted, as reflected in Bernie's speeches/platform. The template is there. It has the support of vast swaths of the country. How do we implement it?

IMHO, everything's already getting diluted by these various organizations and groups vying for our attention and dollars. I don't have an answer. But I wish smarter people than I would coalesce around Bernie's platform and figure it the f#ck out. (FWIW, I don't think the existing Dem party is the answer).

up
0 users have voted.
WaterLily's picture

@WaterLily

up
0 users have voted.
Raggedy Ann's picture

@WaterLily What you say is in line with Steven D's comment that a new party needs to rise up - so to me, it needs to rise up around Bernie's platform. The problem is that there is no one organizing, which is problematic in and of itself. Something must be done, however, we must change our system of government to work FOR the people.

up
0 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

@WaterLily As of today 6 count'em new organizations are begging me for money or time to take back the Democratic party or congress. The latest, "March into'18". I'm now pretty sure that most of them are the same old Donna Brazille Dems jumping on the anti-Trump bandwagon. Extremely frustrating as the paid or unpaid violent agitators swamp the media. Pissed that this opportunity for real change might be slip sliding away.

up
0 users have voted.
Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@Big Al by the clown show - which serves the PTB just fine.

up
0 users have voted.

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Steven D's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger is doing a masterful job at distracting all of us with the help of the Dem elites, who are more than happy to play the Clown's game so we stop focusing on their failures and inadequacies and their real base, which is simply one faction of oligarchs (billionaires and corporations) that are at odds over some issues with another faction of oligarchs. One could eve label them the OSigarchs (Tech sector), the Oilagarchs (self explanatory) and the BigCasinoligarchs and the Miloligarchs (Defense contractors). Some interests they alll have in common however is screwing the rest of us for greater profits for themselves.

And as I said in a comment to La Fem's essay today, the infotainment industry is thrilled Trump won. He generates more stories in one day than Obama did in a month, though Obama clearly did as much damage to the 99% and our "Republic" and any Republican over the last 8 years while serving the intersts of a variety of the aforenamed oligarchic factions.

As for the issue of Leaders, however, unfortunately, human nature, or hominid nature, tends toward creating hierarchies in order to maintain social cohesion. Thus, imo, we do need leaders to promote the agenda that Bernie advocated and promoted. To a large extent, we do depend on leaders to generate passion and emotional connection with that agenda by associating it with the Great Man or Woman leader, or leaders. At the moment however, we are bereft of leadership on the Left, whereas those who view succumbed to Trump's appeal have their leader, who over the last two weeks has been making a point to "deliver" or make the appearance of delivering on his promises to his supporters withing the larger 99% bloc. On the left, we are being stymied by the dinosaur that is the Democratic Party. In my view, no effective leader for leftists will come from them since they do not support that agenda, as was shown so nakedly this last year.

At the present time I am of the opinion that the Democratic Party needs to die and be re-born or replaced by a Socialist Party, under whatever name it chooses to call itself. A majority of people 34 and under already do not believe capitalism works for them and that number is likely to grow regardless of which of our two major oligarchic parties obtain power over the governments, federal, state and local. The Dems are, in effect, working assiduously to block any transition to a truly progressive left wing political movement, much as the "centrist" politicians of the Weimar Republic in Germany did after WWI, and we all know how that ended up.

up
0 users have voted.

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

shaharazade's picture

@Big Al to get anything at all other then the run around by looking to any Demcratic or Republican politician or political party. Solidarity behind the perpetrators whether they call themselves progressives, liberal or Democrat's just keeps people in this reactionary cycle. How many times since the Bushies 2001 coup have people turned to the so call Democratic party to fight this shit? By now it should be clear to everyone that all pols are neither right or left and that their only interest is keeping the power right where it is. They all have the same agenda and it isn't democratic.

I include that sheepdogger Bernie in the anti-democratic duopoly. He running around sword rattling and pumping the blame the Russians. He came out the other day and said that no the DNC did not. Trump is insane and if the Democrat's wanted to they could stop his surreal display of power.They won't as he is good cover for the by-partisan extremist agenda. To me it seems a big waste of time and playing into their hands to keep viewing what's going down through the story line provided by both left vs. right. If one more person says to me a third party is impossible and that this is the inevitable reality we must live under I'm a gonna scream. Politics's and history are not static so why accept this bogus duopoly as all we can get?

Expand your minds and hearts beyond this ongoing surreal by-partisan theater people. Right now this is real but nothing about reality is ever static. Instead of just resisting Trump and Co. resist this farce of a government. Don't go looking for solidity with these fucking war criminals and the global gangster 'oligarchical collectivist's', who are orchestrating this horror show. They are all fascist's and they all installed Trump. Extortion is not democracy it's complicity. This theater of the absurd distracts and divides making solidarity impossible.

When the progressive's darling Elizabeth Warren voted to install Ben Carson who is every bit as crazy ass as Trump your being led down the garden path. To believe that there is a lick of difference between either party or that it's possible to resist within the system using pols who call themselves progressives, socially liberal, better then? or reformers is delusional.

Persona worship, empty identity politics and looking for leaders who are pols isn't going to stop Trump. Even if the Democrat's are empowered and get voted in as a backlash to Trump! we're still screwed. We need to let go of this duopolistic reality it won't do a damn thing other then look and sound better but underneath the surface these pols are equally ugly and mean us all harm.

up
0 users have voted.

The Two-Faced Corporate Party needs to be recognized as being illegitimate.

The principles of protected citizen rights and limitation on government encroachment enshrined in the US Constitution define the basis and direction of American law and supersede any law made in contravention of that Constitution.

The People of America own their government, specified as being legitimate only if it is of, by and for themselves, and which exists to serve the public interest and that of their country.

Power can only be taken from the people if they can be successfully conned into believing that their guaranteed inalienable Constitutional rights can be 'legally' taken from them by anyone holding public service, despite having sworn to uphold that Constitution as a condition of holding such office.

This is something which is not legally possible, whatever any corrupt court or judge might say, in denying that Constitution's principles and therefore automatically forfeiting their right to the delegated powers belonging to the people and provided to that public office for the purpose of serving the public good.

The Constitution gives no power to the transitory holder of any public office to turn tyrant at will, merely by breaking their oath and the law of the land.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.